They say the first 48 hours after a child kidnapping is the most crucial. After that the possibility of finding them safely begins to go down.
If time stands still in Neverland, does that mean it's actually more likely to find Henry safe and sound?
This is probably what grasping at straws feels like.
There's a fire licking at her insides every waking moment, that intensifies when she thinks about Henry.
It's leaping to get out, to burn the whole forest and every single person around her if it means she can get to Henry.
It means spitting fire when she's talked to.
(She can see it reflected back in Regina's eyes when their campfire has died and everyone is sleeping at night.)
When they can't sleep, they talk.
Regina tells her about when Henry wore her lipstick and her heels when he was three because he wanted to be "Just wike you." And when he first started to walk how he'd catch onto her skirt and wobble along behind her, like an elephant holding onto his mother's tail. And when he liked being read to: Matilda and Harry Potter and encyclopedia entries about space (because her son has always been a little nerd). But not fairytales, never fairytales.
The comics which came later, and the Marvel v DC fight that she couldn't tell where her traitorous son got his inclinations from.
Emma's wiping tears before long, and the fire inside her flickers for a moment. This is the calmest she's felt since Henry went out of her sight.
More and more often she wakes snuggled into Regina's side, Regina unconsciously running her fingers through her hair. Her bedroll soon migrates to beside Regina's at during the pitching of the camp.
She's the most surprised when she catches Snow smiling gently, looking at the two of them.
It's working together of an entirely different kind. Not physical, but like she can only breathe when she feels Regina's steady gaze on her.
Neal might be in Neverland, and what kind of Savior would she be if she didn't at least try to find him?
Maybe there's another way for the kid to have a semblance of a family.
Her loving Regina is irrelevant in the greater scheme of things; there is no way this closeness could be permanent.
Regina goes off on her own, because she is reckless and impatient.
What is she supposed to do?
Pan has promised her Henry will be alright as long as she plays his games. This seems to be a fucked up level.
(Neal knows how to cheat this game, and Emma's willing to take all the help she can get.)
Then Regina isn't there, and Hook is, with his rum feeding the fire. And maybe she'll need an inferno if she wants everyone to get out of there alive.
His mark has faded off, but he tells her a story of eyes like the ocean, and crumbling hearts (because does she imagine his is still intact?) when he has had enough rum. He might not be in the same fire as Regina and her, but he does know how the blazing heat feels alone.
He knows about surviving without a soulmate. (Never living, only surviving.)
It's called hysterical strength, when mothers lift cars off of their children, or when fathers with stab wounds fight armed guards to take a baby to a wardrobe.
When it's Regina and her together, they move the moon.
This is her fault.
When Henry's actually Pan and Pan is Henry. And when Regina cannot recognise her own son because she's so starved of his affection.
If only she hadn't-
It doesn't matter. What matters is that she fixes this.
There's another curse. Because of course there's another fucking curse.
Then Regina's talking about saying goodbye to the 'thing she loves most' and Emma's heart is in her eyes and her stomach's soaring for the split second before Regina turns to Henry. Obviously. Like-
(Stupid, stupid, stupid.)
"My gift to you, is happy memories."
It seems Regina gets to chase her out of Storybrooke after all.
(It seems Emma gets to steal Henry from her)
She is sure neither of them wanted this.
Her name is Emma Swan. Her son is Henry Swan. Her mark says, You're Henry's birth mother? like he could have some other kind of mother.
Like she could ever have given him away.
She's not sure if she named him Henry because her mark said so.
(Would that be too horrible?)
But she doesn't know any Henries and had no particular fondness for the name, before.
And she's sure she's not going to do this being pregnant thing again, however much she might love Henry.
Walsh is easy, he's warm, he's comfortable.
Walsh makes breakfast when he stays over, and doesn't talk down to Henry.
Walsh doesn't stop her dreams of dark, dark eyes and so much fire.
Then a man with a prosthetic hook who looks (and smells) like he hasn't showered in days shows up at her door.
What's even more unbelievable, she entertains him.
(Sure, she tosses him in jail first, but to be fair he did try to kiss her.)
Walsh doesn't have a mark. Says they're extremely uncommon, where he's from. As if he's from another planet instead of Kansas.
Henry can't wait for his mark to come in, runs to her every time he thinks he feels an itch that he hopes is it.
She wishes he gets an easy one. Like the florist girl two blocks away whose Oh, there you are. perfectly complements her wife's God I'm so sorry my dog's an ass.
(She's crossed thirty. To be honest she's not surprised her soulmate's not found her. She wouldn't even blame them if they did meet her, found her lacking, and went away- like others that had promised to love her.)
When she leaves home, with hook-and-guyliner, she brings her old red leather jacket: the soft and worn-down one. Even though she can't remember ever wearing it after Henry.
It feels wrong, feels like playing dress-up in someone else's clothes- but it still fits her like a glove.